The Hiroia Jimmy Smart Scale Review - Perfect for One Reason!

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This is the Hiroia Jimmy - and this isn’t your average scale, because, It has a detachable display! Now is this a legit feature or is it just a gimmick?

Hey it’s Xris and welcome back to the channel. In today’s video I’m going to be reviewing the Jimmy smart scale from Hiroia. As a disclaimer, this was sent to me for free under no obligations to review it and I am not being paid or compensated in any way by Hiroia for this review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Okay first, let’s talk about the build quality.

The box and packaging is really quite nice. It comes with a cable to charge, the scale itself, and a little plate to attach elsewhere for the display. It came with a quick start guide that doesn’t really help too much and I had to refer to an online guide to get more info.

The entire scale weighs about 446g, with the detachable display weighing about 63g. The scale itself is just a little bigger than an Acaia Lunar at about 12x12cm.

The build quality is quite good, being made of aluminum and high quality plastic. The aluminum used is not quite the same level of premiumness as the Acaia Lunar, but still feels pretty good. Here’s a sound comparison.

The magnetic snap is pretty satisfying and holds nicely, but you do have to be careful with it. MOre on that later.

You can see here that the connection between the display and scale is made using these pins, similar to how an Ember mug is connected to its base.

There’s relatively minimal branding to the scale with just a little Hiroira logo in the corner. Overall its a solid build quality, and I’d give it a 8 out of 10 on the premiumness factor, if the Acaia is considered a 10.

However I am going to drop it another point because it's 2022 and we should be using USB-C, not micro-USB. Small nitpick. Also the newest version of the Acaia does use USB-C for those wondering.

SPEED

This scale is fairly quick, and there isn't an issue with the latency either. It might not be as quick as the Lunar but it’s fast enough to not be an issue.

One issue I did notice though is how this scale performed when placing things on top of the scale. And by that I mean things weighed in differently if I moved them on the scale, while this isn't an issue on something like my Lunar.

Speaking of which, here’s a quick demo comparing it to the Acaia Lunar.

There is one other thing that I’ve found quite annoying with the Jimmy and that’s the start up time. Sometimes, it’s nearly instant. But occasionally it goes into this stuck mode where the Hiroia logo shows for a long, long time and seemingly needs a restart to get it to work.

It happens more often than I’d like and that’s just been a pretty frustrating aspect to deal with. I think I’ve been able to narrow down the solution to the display having to be aligned perfectly with the scale itself via the magnets before it’ll fully turn on.

FEATURES

So this scale does advertise some smart features, which if you’ve seen my reviews of the Acaia Pearl and Lunar, you know I’m not particularly fond of nor care about. Honestly as long as the scale has a built in timer, I’m okay with it.

There’s also app connectivity.

APP DETAILS

The app design is… interesting. It’s definitely on the simple side and could probably use a modern refresh.

In the middle you have the devices tab where you can pair the scale but also, for whatever reason, call the scale - like an airtag.

Weird.

This is also where you would update the scale if there were any new firmwares.

The app has 4 modes, espresso, pour over, training, and scale data display. Honestly, I don’t care too much for most of these modes although they are interesting.

You can select different types of modes for both espresso and pour over and even document recipes that you try out. You can design recipes in the pourover mode which is kinda cool and similar to the recipe feature on the Acaia Pearl.

The training mode is suuuuuper interesting and while I definitely will not be utilizing it, I think it’s a pretty fun integration nonetheless. You can literally train yourself to pour certain recipes and follow the flow rates while getting feedback from the scale and the phone.

Finally you have the scale data display mode marked by a letter J for some reason, where you can monitor the scale’s info on your phone instead. You can trigger the tare and start/stop timer functions as well.

Now to give this scale credit, my thoughts on smart scales have changed since my initial review of the Acaia Pearl S where I actually liked some of the features.

Flash forward much later, now I only want a fast and accurate scale with a timer.

These app integrations are pretty unique and could be fun to play around with, but I don’t see myself using them on the day to day.

USAGE

So finally, using this scale. For espresso, I don’t care too much for the detachable display. Sure, it might be nice to not bend your neck and look downwards at your scale - but it’s really not a big deal for me.

For pour-over, same deal. I’m looking down anyway as I’m pouring, so again, no benefit.

But, lever machines. That is where this scale absolutely shines. This is the perfect scale for the Flair 58. While using the Flair, it can be hard to simultaneously look under where you’re pulling to try and see the scale.

But this scale allows me to place the display directly in front of me and monitor the numbers while pulling the shot in a comfortable way with this lever machine.

I think most lever machine owners could also benefit from a scale like this, particularly if you’re always at a bit of an awkward angle to pull your shots.

CONCLUSION

If you’re in the market for a premium scale like the Lunar, then this might be another one worth considering. I especially think it's great for lever machines, but might also serve as a purpose for someone who may need accessibility solutions.

But for a typical user and on the day to day, whether for pourover or espresso, I do still think the Lunar outperforms the Jimmy, especially for the same money.

So those are my thoughts on the Hiroia Jimmy, I hope you enjoyed this video, drop a like if you did, subscribe if you haven’t already, and I will see you in the next one.